CONCLUSION. 199 



A glance at any summary of tbe Beptilia still maintaining an existence in 

 Great Britain^ will impress the contrast between them and the numbers, the 

 hugeness, the strange modifications of such cold-blooded air-breathers which 

 lived on the lands and swam by the shores of the Mesozoic and Eocene worlds. 

 These discoveries suggest, also, the most probable correspondence of the climate 

 of the ancient continents at those epochs with that of the countries where the 

 crocodile, the alligator, the ghavial, the boas, and the larger chelonians still find 

 conditions of existence. 



Nevertheless, what most impresses the writer is a sense of the fragmentary 

 nature of the present contribution to a restoration of such forms of past life, 

 and the conviction of the extent of the field which, especially in the Mesozoic 

 strata of our island, still remains for the cultivation of the Reptilian branch of 

 Pala30ntology. 



1 Bell's ' British Eeptiles,' 8vo., V. Voorst. 



THE ENP. 



